Deploy a Virtual Machine From a VM Template in the Content Library in the vSphere Web Client

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You can use a VM template from a content library to deploy a virtual machine to a host or a cluster in your vSphere inventory. You can also apply a customization specification to the virtual machine.

Procedure

Select Home > Content Libraries.

Select a content library and click the Templates tab.

Right-click a VM Template and select New VM from This Template.

The New Virtual Machine from Content Library wizard opens.

On the Select name and location page, enter a name and select a location for the virtual machine.

(Optional) To apply a customization specification to your virtual machine, select the Customize the operating system check-box and click Next.

On the Customize Guest OS page, select a customization specification or create a new one, and click Next.

On the Select a resource page, select a host, a cluster, a resource pool, or a vApp where to run the deployed VM template, and click Next.

On the Review details page, verify the template details and click Next.

On the Select storage page, configure the datastore.

Select the format for the virtual machine's disks.

Option

Action

Same format as source

Use the same format as the source virtual machine.

Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed

Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation. Any data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out on demand at a later time on first write from the virtual machine.

Thick Provision Eager Zeroed

Create a thick disk that supports clustering features such as Fault Tolerance. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated at creation time. In contrast to the thick provision lazy zeroed format, the data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out during creation. It might take longer to create disks in this format than to create other types of disks.

Thin Provision

Use the thin provisioned format. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it.

The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.

If you selected a datastore cluster and do not want to use Storage DRS with this virtual machine, select Disable Storage DRS for this virtual machine and select a datastore within the datastore cluster.

Click Next.

Store all virtual machine files in the same non-volatile memory disk

Apply a virtual machine storage policy for the virtual machine home files and the virtual disks from the VM storage policy drop-down menu.

Select a non-volatile memory disk and click Next.

On the Select networks page, select a network for each network adapter in the template and click Next.

On the Ready to complete page, review the page and click Finish.

Results

A new task for creating the virtual machine appears in the Recent Tasks pane. After the task is complete, the new virtual machine is created on the selected resource.